Year of the Dragon - Goodbye Genn & Baku, New Solo Content, Arena Draft Pools, Smarter Deck Builder
Hearthstone is getting huge updates this year! Say goodbye to the Odd and Even mechanic as it gets vaulted to Wild and more!
- Nine cards are being hall of famed. Most cards are Even/Odd themed.
- New paid Single player content. 5 chapters (1 for free). Earn packs and more.
- Arena is getting rotating draft pool. Once or twice per expansion they'll switch the sets up.
- Every expansion will have a pre-release Fireside Gathering.
- You will be able to reroll Legendary quests into a normal one.
- You can now choose a Random card back! Single card back no more.
- A smarter deck builder is coming. Details will come at a later date.
- Arena wins now count towards golden heroes.
- Free Packs! Login between March 25 and April 2 to get free packs. One per day.
Expansion Spoiler
Hall of Fame Cards
If you craft these cards now, you will get your dust refunded once Year of the Dragon begins AND you will keep the cards.
Smarter Deck Builder
Regis Killbin talks about the deck builder in more detail in his dedicated Year of the Dragon video. Regis was present at the Hearthstone Community Summit that took place early this week.
- If you have an empty deck, clicking complete deck will give you the best deck for the cards in your collection, by winrate.
- If you have a partially completed deck, it will add cards to your deck that have high winrates win your already chosen cards.
- Everything is based on real, internal Hearthstone data.
Zayle, Shadow Cloak
A new card will be rewarded from the first PVE adventure. He works a bit like Whizbang the Wonderful
Quote from PCGamerPS, if you're wondering what Zayle, Shadow Cloak is (see the image listing all the PvE content), it's the new Whizbang the Wonderful. You'll earn a golden copy of Zayle for owning all five wings, and he'll enable you to play with five new deck recipes. And because Zayle is golden, so will all the cards in those decks be. Again, great for new players, or those who love a bit of bling.
Reveal Video
Kiwii Recaps
Blog Post
Quote from BlizzardIt’s that time of the year again, when the great Hearthstone clock in the sky ticks one more tock forward. Get ready to welcome the brand-new Hearthstone year—the Year of the Dragon!
Hearthstone in the Year of the Raven
Before we jump into what’s new, here’s a brief look back at the Year of the Raven.
One thing we did was refine the experience for new players just starting out in Hearthstone, with the goal of providing a better learning curve. We added 25 additional ranks to help players learn the ropes of the game and improve matchmaking.
We also made more Ranked ladder improvements, most recently to adjust Ranked Play and reduce the number of stars required to advance in many of the ranks. This was in response to feedback from the community—we always take that to heart, so thank you for your passion and commitment to the game. You’re always welcome to pull up a chair by the hearth and let us know what you think.
As we move from the Year of the Raven to the Year of the Dragon, overall we want to be more flexible when it comes to making changes to the game that we think will lead to a better experience. After Rastakhan’s Rumble debuted, we released balance updates twice in two months, hopefully making for better and more interesting games for all of you. We want to keep doing this as and when needed. We will also do our best to communicate with you ahead of our upcoming changes and give you a heads up that they’re coming whenever possible.
In the Year of the Dragon
Welcome to the Hall of Fame!
At the start of each Hearthstone year, we take the opportunity to reevaluate the Basic and Classic sets. As Hearthstone has evolved and we’ve better defined and distinguished the classes, several cards from those sets stand out as pushing classes in a different direction than the rest of their tools. These cards are moved to the Hall of Fame each year in order to allow the unique class identities, including their strengths and weaknesses, to shine.
This year, nine cards are moving to the Hall of Fame.
Naturalize
Druids have always had excellent flexibility and a number of different tools when it comes to generating mana, cards, and minions, but have long struggled to remove their opponent’s large minions. Naturalize effectively nullifies that weakness, giving Druids a powerful option in matchups where card advantage doesn’t matter. Moving it into the Hall of Fame enforces the Druid’s weakness in removing large minions, maintaining its class identity.
Doomguard
As masters of Demons, Warlocks have long been a powerful board-control class. While we like that minion combat is as much a part of the Warlock’s identity as destructive magic, we want to acknowledge and embrace the class’s weaknesses when they lose control of the board. To that end, we want to limit the amount of damage a Warlock can deal from their hand. As a powerful Charge minion, Doomguard pushes against the Warlock class identity, so we are moving it into the Hall of Fame.
Divine Favor
Over the past several years, we’ve seen a number of strong, aggressive Paladin decks. While we like Paladin’s identity as a minion-summoning and minion-buffing class with a fair amount of resource generation, card draw doesn’t also need to be one of the Paladin’s strengths. Divine Favor is one of the most cost-effective draw spells in the game, so to better emphasize other classes’ strengths and to provide better control over the power level of future aggressive Paladin decks, we are moving Divine Favor to the Hall of Fame.
Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane
Baku and Genn are powerful cards that have promoted new strategies since their introduction in the metagame. Those strategies have been more prevalent than we’d intended in Standard, and we felt that they might end up overshadowing what we’re going to introduce in the Year of the Dragon. In order for set rotation to breathe new life into Standard and maintain overall health of the ladder, we are rotating Baku and Genn into the Hall of Fame a year earlier than normal.
As they were complementary to the Even-Odd mechanic that Baku and Genn introduced, Gloom Stag, Black Cat, Glitter Moth, and Murkspark Eel will also join the Hall of Fame.
Just like last year, you will be able to keep your copies of these card once they move to the Hall of Fame, and you’ll also be granted the full Arcane Dust value for each card (up to the maximum number that can be used in a deck). The dust will be automatically awarded once you log-in after the Year of the Dragon begins.
The Evolving Single-Player Experience
We’re taking a new approach to Solo Adventures in the Year of the Dragon, and the result is something bigger, deeper, and much more ambitious than anything we’ve ever done.
We’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback on our Dungeon Run–style missions, so you’ll be pleased to know that we’re using that as a framework for what’s coming this year. Expect a more robust level of customization, including the ability to unlock multiple starting decks and Hero Powers per class, and a non-combat tavern encounter where you’ll have the opportunity to fine-tune your deck.
The first Solo Adventure in the Year of the Dragon launches about a month after the first expansion of the year, kicking off with a free chapter. You’ll get to master the new systems and mechanics from the perspective of a mysterious (yet familiar) new Mage character.
Players who want to dive even deeper into the story can unlock additional chapters as they’re released for 700 gold each, or purchase the entire experience for $19.99. Each additional chapter comes with two all-new characters to play, each with three Hero Powers and four starting decks to unlock, usable against dozens of new bosses across multiple game modes. After completing each chapter, you’ll earn three card packs from the new expansion, and for completing all five chapters, you’ll get a card back and a Golden Classic pack.
Here’s what awaits you:
We’re beyond excited to show you what we’ve been scheming on behind the scenes for the Year of the Dragon. This highly replayable Solo Adventure will unlock over the course of four weeks beginning in May. We look forward to sharing more details closer to release.
The Arena Experience
We’re always looking for ways to enhance all of our game modes, including modes like the Arena. In the Year of the Dragon, we’ll be updating the Arena draft pool by rotating out sets and adding new ones twice every expansion to keep things fresh. With the first rotation, the Arena draft pool will contain the following sets: Basic, Classic, Curse of Naxxramas, Whispers of the Old Gods, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, The Witchwood, and the first expansion of this year.
Fireside Gathering Fun
For those of you who have experienced first-hand the community that’s built up around Fireside Gatherings these past years, you’ll be pleased to know that we plan for the Pre-Release period to be a fixture of our expansions moving forward. You’ll be able to open your packs ahead of an expansion’s launch and play with them at public Pre-Release parties. If smaller, more intimate gatherings are more your speed, you’ll be able to enjoy Pre-Release with friends at home via an unlisted Fireside Gathering, complete with the perks available at public Pre-Release parties.
If you're new to Pre-Release parties and Fireside Gatherings, visit FiresideGatherings.com to take your first step towards visiting the tavern in real life!
…And More
One of the things we’ve always tried to do in Hearthstone is listen to player feedback, and we’re committed to keep improving the experience for all Hearthstone players. Here are some more new changes coming to Hearthstone based on your feedback that we hope you’ll enjoy.
Rerolling Legendary quests
If you’ve always struggled to complete specific quests that come with in-game events, you’ll be pleased to know that all Legendary quests will get the reroll arrow this year, so you can pick the quests you want to play! Rerolling a legendary quest will work like any ordinary quest reroll and consume your reroll for the day. We will no longer have any Legendary quests that can’t be rerolled, and Legendary quests given on the first day of an expansion will expire with the launch of the next one.
Random card back option
We’ll be adding a new card back option to the gallery—the Random option, located in the first slot next to the Classic card back. When you choose this, a random card back will be selected from your collection at the beginning of each match.
Smarter deck builder
Deck-building is an essential part of Hearthstone, but it isn’t always the simplest. Sometimes you just like a specific combo, while other times you want to play a specific theme in your deck. This year, we’re sending the deck completer back to school to become a bit smarter. We’ll have more details to share on this at a later date, but expect the deck helper to better take your current card collection into consideration when filling out incomplete decks.
More ways towards your Golden Hero
Winning a game in an Arena run will now count towards the total win count of the Hero you chose to play, making it easier for you to get to those coveted 500 wins.
The Mammoth Sunset
Finally, as we bid farewell to the sets rotating out of Standard, we thought it would be fitting to give them a truly Mammoth sunset. Logging into the game between midnight on March 25, 2019 and midnight of April 2, 2019 will reward you with one pack each from the Journey to Un’Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs expansions.
During this time, you’ll also be able to bid the year goodbye in a new Tavern Brawl: Brawl Block – Year of the Mammoth. This constructed Brawl will only allow cards from Journey to Un’Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs, and will award the usual Classic pack with your first win.
What Do You Think?
We’re excited for the Year of the Dragon, but we’re even more excited to share this ongoing journey with you, our awesome community. We want to hear what you think about everything we’ve just shared.
You’ll have an opportunity to do exactly that when you join us for a live AMA on Reddit on Thursday, March 7 at 1:00 p.m. PST. We hope to see you there!
2 legendaries, 2 epics, 3 rares and 2 commons for hall of fame... seems alright... plenty of dust.
Yeap, 19,200 to be exact. That's a lot.
Thank you Blizzard, very cool!
But it's... it's actually for real this time. Nice.
Year of the Dragons seems the perfect name. Blizzard employees will have to work as dragons this year in order to keep users on Hearthstone. We will see.
Lest they all get laid off so the dragon's hoard can continue to grow.
Malygos didn't get HoF but they got rid of Genn, Baku, Divine Favor and Doomguard and I get that Malygos kinda enables combo archetype more and it might disappear if they moved him.
I still hate gallery priest but I guess them losing psychic scream is really big for control matchups!
All in all very nice blizzard, very nice!!!! I am looking forward to this year!
I'm a little surprised that they are making us buy single player content again, but otherwise all positive news!
That new deckbuilder is a terrible idea.
Everyone knows how to use google to netdeck.
This is a little more powerful than that, using Blizzard’s own internal winrate data (which is much more reliable than VS), and it makes one of the most annoying parts of the game (netdecking sameness) a native feature. I think it’s a mistake. It would have been better if they tuned the deckbuilder so you could build around basic archetypes: e.g. “I want to play Midrange Druid.”
Here's what going to happen, to an even greater degree than we already see quite clearly in hsreplay:
- A new variant of a [class] deck emerges which experienced players adopt and win with, driving it to "best winrate in the current meta" position.
- Players use the "empty deck" builder to leverage Hearthstone's internal data on winrates to build that deck.
- The resulting influx of players across the whole gamut of skill levels pulls the winrates of that deck down, allowing something else to move to top position.
- "Best" becomes a fluid, moving target with players coming at the meta from lots of different directions.
This is much better for the game than a fixed groupthink that says "everybody agrees this optimized Hunter is the best and so everyone plays that or its best counter." That fixed groupthink is enabled by a *slow* feedback loop that leaves people still collectively thinking that for a long time even as it becomes decreasingly true as individuals discover decks that do better. A fast feedback loop enabled by the game itself will spread people out over a wider variety.
Okay, wait a god damn second. I'm a wild player. Right now there is 3 evil forces in wild - Barnes, Genn and Baku. So tell me, is that okay that while standart players can finally breath, wild is untouched apart from free dust to Genn/Baku players? This mean that i'm just gonna look at golden Baku and Genn like 90% times untill something even more frustrating to play against gonna be released, am I?
Yea and i was hoping to see a change of ressurect mechanic but no. They don't care wild players at all.
Most of these news are great,but I don't know what to say about this new solo adventure. I mean it's nice,but 3 packs for 700g is not good at all. We used to get these solo adventures for free(and don't say it's the same as Naxx,because back in the day for 20$ you got all the cards not just 15 packs). Oh and if this paid solo adventure becomes a thing and we get one after each expansion,it's ridiculous because it would be so hard to keep up (with gold or money).
You dont have to buy it.... simples as that.
You also get a new Wizbang dude and a golden pack, that like a lot of dust.
But yeah, mostly it's about making more pve content. It's like a different department getting funded. You are not obligated to buy it. It's for those who love pve so much, they don't mind paying for it. Like buying solo content inside a f2p game. Fortnite has this as well?
Upon hearing this news Kibler scrapped the scripts for his next three “The Genn and Baku Problem” videos.
Lol
i left HS 2 Months ago, because i could't see baku/genn shit anymore. Checking hearthpwn every week to get some hope for this game, and here we go <3
I think it will be a good thing for Warrior players too. Let me explain: right know Odd is the only viable archetype (yes there are also Dragon, Rush and Mech W. but they're not exceptional, right?), but it kinda ties down the whole class behind getting a ton of armor and sitting at the top of it.
While this can be amusing some times, it certainly takes away a lot of fun and interaction, as well as other theorycrafts that may be worthy but simply aren't good enough to compete with Odd Warrior's Tank Up!. In the last months I've played a lot of Dragon Warrior and I really have enjoyed it, but knowing it is just a fringe deck is sad to me.
The same argument is valid also for other classes, like Paladin or Mage, which now will be able to develop new archetypes that won't be strictly bound to the Hero Power mechanic's abuse. What do you think? Did I miss your point? I just want to create a constructive discussion